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L is for Lentil and vegetable curry

I picked up this recipe nearly 3 years ago and since then it’s been one of those great go-to recipes that I can tweak to whatever vegetables I have in. It contains at least 2 portions of your 5-a-day, is low in fat and is very tasty!

Preparation time: 10-15 minutes

Cooking time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

200g yellow lentils (washed)

½ tsp turmeric

1 tsp tamarind paste

2 tbsp desiccated coconut (optional)

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

3 tsp sesame seeds

2 cloves

2 dried red chilis

12 curry leaves

2 small onions, finely sliced

6 tomatoes (cut into quarters)

1½ tsp ground corriander

10 okra

1 medium sweet potato – cut into ½inch cubes

a handful of green beans

200g paneer cheese – cut into small pieces

a pinch of salt

Recipe:

Put the lentils in 1litre of water in a large pan and bring to the boil. Spoon away any scum, then turn down the heat to a simmer. Add the turmeric and sweet potato and leave to soften for 20 minutes.

The next stage is to make the tarka. Heat the oil in a frying pan, then add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, 1 tsp of sesame seeds, cloves and dried chillies.

Once the mustard seeds have started popping, add the curry leaves and onion and a pinch of salt and leave for a few minutes until the onion has softened.

Then add the tomatoes and ground coriander, give it a stir and leave for another 5minutes until the tomatoes have soften and the flavours are well combined.

Add the tarka to the lentil and sweet potato mix (which should be nicely soft by now). Then add the tamarind paste, coconut if using, green beans and ocra and leave to simmer for a final 5 minutes.

Meanwhile in frying pan you used for the tarka, fry the paneer in a little oil, sprinkling over the remaining sesame seeds. It should take a couple of minutes on each side for this hard cheese to take some colour. Add to the curry and it’s ready to eat.